Herself’s Houston Garden

I lived in the DFW area in the early eighties for two years and never once saw a live armadillo. We moved to Houston in ‘05 and it took another two years before I saw a live one. It had gotten to be a joke that some fairies just put dead ones out in the middle of the night to find in the morning.

The eyesight on this guys is so bad that I was able to photograph one with out being noticed from about 2′ away. They seem to have little fear of humans if you don’t startle them.

There are many kinds of armadillos, which are mammals, and their closest living relatives are sloths and anteaters. In the United States we have the 9 banded armadillo. It is the only known mammal to give birth to four and always four identical quadruplets. The life span of the armadillo can be as long as 15 years.

While mostly nocturnal they can occasionally be found looking for food during the day.

We gardeners know them from the damage they wreck in the garden while we sleep. If you wake up to find your garden rototilled a few inches deep, it was likely an armadillo. They are looking for grub and other tasty insects in your garden.

To keep them out of your garden you need a strong fence buried several inches below ground level, or more easily mulch. Armadillos tend not to like the smell of mulch. So fresh layers of mulch do more than hold water in your soil.

See also:
Armadillo online

I’ve several posts up on butterfly, more Butterfly gardening, hummingbird and bee gardens but what about other wildlife?

Of course the first question is do you want other wildlife? Not every one is keen on birds, squirrels, possums and other critters. The cats and I love bird watching, they seem to dislike the squirrels as much as I do. The possums, skunks and other things that find their way to here are cool to watch but leave the cats trembling. ( I have very wimpy cats. ) Fred being a tabby, does not look all that different from a skunk at night. One summer evening I went out to fetch him from under a shrub and found a skunk. We parted peacefully but it was a close call. So think before you decide you want to attract critters to your backyard.

A pond is a great attractor of wildlife. We had one up north stocked with goldfish. In the winter before and after the top froze a local sushi eating raccoon would come clean the pond out. We haven’t yet added a pond to this yard, but it is on the list of things to do in the garden.

You can create a Certified Backyard Habitat pretty easily. You need food, water, homes for critters, sustainable gardening, then finally you certify your home. Food sources include plants with seeds, fruits, nuts, and nectar. Providing water can be as simple as putting out a bird bath or as fancy as a built in pond. Cover and places to raise the young are thickets, piles of rocks, birdhouses etc. Sustainable gardening is using things wisely - mulch, compost, collect rain, skip the chemicals, etc.

You can Become a Certified Texas Naturalist Feb 15th is the application deadline. Classes are two Saturdays a month from March 1st until sometime in Oct. They also have several talks and events that are open to the public.

A little water can go a long way in attracting wildlife. Bog gardens can provide lizards, skinks and toads with water. Also give them some rocks to hide under or an over turned clay pot or two and they’ll move right in. ( I was reading about skinks in a flyer and I confirmed it with Google. I thought someone was pulling my leg, skinks? Who named those critters? )/

Some tips for attracting wildlife to your garden:

1) Food - native sources are best, you want native plants that have seeds, nectar, nuts, and berries. Feeders are good as a supplement but should not be the main source of food you provide.

2) Replicate what you see in the wild ( at least as far as the HOA will let you ). Use different height plants and group them in tiered arrangements with clusters of plants containing large, medium and small plants. Birds love the shrubs underneath tall trees.

3) Native species need less care and water and therefore less chemicals.

4) Shelter for critters is needed. Shrubs and hedges work well, you can add in bird houses or bat houses.

5) Dead wood; trees, logs etc provide homes. You can use old logs to line raised beds.

6) Insects are good, well most of them are. Lots of critters eat bugs and will move into your yard if you have their food.

7) Mulch provides shelter for worms, lizards, and toads.

8 ) For water ponds, bird feeders, bog or a swalw garden. Shallow water sources work just fine.

9 ) Keep it neat. You can have a wildscape that does not antagonize your neighbors or the HOA. Having a wildscape does not mean letting your yard run amok.

Other things you can do:

Help the Texas Nature Trackers

I know I wrote a piece on bats not to far back, but I attended a talk on bats from the Texas Dept of Parks and Wildlife and it was too interesting not to cover.

Bats are of the order Chiroptera. There are two branches: megachiroptera and microchiroptera. In Texas we have only microchiroptera bats. There are over 45 known species of bats, 33 of which reside in Texas. Of those 33 bat species residing in Texas 31 live on insects, 2 live on nectar. The nectar eating bats live along the Rio. 11 species of bats reside in Houston and all those in the Houston area are bug eaters.

Bats are mammals and live an average of 41 years. They are the only true flying mammal. The wings have a stretchy material between the bones which is what allows them such maneuverability when flying.

There are three species of vampire bats. All of which reside in Latin America. They feed on the blood of sleeping animals. The bats noses have heat sensors to help locate victims. The vampire bats have very strong legs allowing them to leap. Fangs are in the center of the top row of teeth, like buck teeth. They punch a tiny hole in the victim and lick the blood as it comes out. The blood has an anti coagulant to stop the bleeding. They drink about a teaspoon of blood a night.

Bats are protected by state law in Texas it is illegal to harm them. Bats in Texas range from 2″ nose to tail to 6″ nose to tail.

Bats flying low to the ground should be avoided. Less than 1/2 of 1% of local bats have rabies. But those that do get weaker and weaker and fly closer to the ground the sicker they get. Sometimes babies that are just learning to fly will fly close to the ground. They are not rabid.

Bats do have sight but rely mostly on echolocation to find prey. They send out a high pitched sound and listen for the bounce of that sound.

Many local bats live in the leaves of trees. They hang upside down in the tree and look just like a leaf unless you look very closely. They especially like to roost in the dead palm leaves in our date palms here in the Houston area.

Young bats are born between late May and leave the nest in early Aug. The dept. of Game and Wildlife asks that you not trim off your dead palm leaves until late Aug. to protect young bats.

While sleeping bats body temperature drops and they shiver upon waking to warm up. They must warm up before they can fly. If you startle a sleeping bat it make take the bat a few minutes to warm up enough to fly away.

The Big Eared Bats are a threatened species. They eat bugs.

Northern Yellows roost in Spanish moss and more recently dead palm leaves.

Eastern Reds roost in leaves, loose bark and tree hollows. Some of these ones hibernate in cooler weather. They live as a family until the young leave then live solo.

Big Browns live in small colonies and a huge bug eaters locally.

Mexican Freetails are the most common in Houston. They live in large colonies. The babies sleep communally to keep warm as they are born hairless. They remain in large colonies their whole lives. The Mexican Freetails have two nightly cycles of feeding. The first is done close to the ground after which they rest. The second is done about 10,000′ up where they feed on migrating moths coming from Mexico and prevent them from destroying crops up here.

The Waugh Bridge in Houston has a year round large population of bats who leave enmass at dusk each evening. They roost in the I-Beam construction bridges. The Congress Ave bridge in Austin has an even larger population living there.

More information:
Here:
Bats

Elsewhere:
Texas Parks and Wildlife ( search for bats )
Bat Conservation International

Thanks for the photo

See also:
Windmill Palms

I ran across a gardening article on opossums and thought I’d do a bit of research on them this week. I’ve one that wanders into my yard and hangs out under the bird feeder several times a week about 8 pm. The first time I saw him lumbering along the fence I thought it was an ocean rat. But of course I’m about 60 miles from the ocean and possums move very slowly, not at all like those salt water rats.

The LA Times claims possums are a great clean up crew. They eat snails, slugs and roaches. Opossums do not dig in your garden. That would be the squirrels or perhaps raccoons. Opossums rarely take fruit off of plants, preferring the fruit already on the ground.

They are also scavangers eating road kill or very decayed dead creatures that may be in your garden. ( eewww! )

They run when threatened. If that doesn’t work they will bare their teeth, drool and hiss and if that doesn’t scare you off they then play dead. Playing dead isn’t just play acting. They actually enter a coma like state.

They rarely have rabies, opossums body temperatures are too low for the virus to grow well in their bodies.

Opossums are the only marsupial in North America. Marsupials carry their new borns in a pouch. There are 13 teats in the pouch and the babies remain there for about two months. They then spend a month to a month and a half traveling on mom’s back. Females can have up to three litters a year.

More information:
Opossums: your garden’s evening clean up crew
Nature Works - Virginia Opossum